Cosmogonies and mythopoesis in the Balkans and beyond
Cosmogonies and mythopoesis in the Balkans and beyond

Summary/Abstract: Compared and contrasted in this article are three different types of accounts dealing with the cosmogonic and eschatological themes employed in Slavonic and Balkan oral tradition, para-Biblical literature and modern poetry. The focus of analysis is the cluster of motifs attested in the creation narrative of the apocryphal Legend of the Sea of Tiberias. Two versions are examined: the South-Slavonic one discovered in 1845 by V. Grigorovich in the Monastery of Slepche, and the 18th century Russian account from MS № 21.11.3 (fols. 3a–5b) from the Archaeographic Department of the Library of the Academy of Sciences [Библиотека Академии наук, Рукописный отдел] in St. Petersburg, composed most probably by an Old Believer; this manuscript is published here for the first time. Folklore counterparts of the apocryphal Legend of the Sea of Tiberias are treated, with special emphasis on the oral narratives from the Bulgarian diaspora in Bessarabia (God and the Devil Create the World Amicably but then Fall Out). Finally, a poem of the 20th century Bulgarian intellectual Pencho Slaveykov [Пенчо Славейков] from his anthology “On the Island of the Blessed” is discussed; the poem, entitled How God willed the Earth to come to be and what did Satanail do after that? was designated by Slaveykov himself as “a legend of the Bogomils”, and blended within his lyrics are dualistic themes and motifs attested in vernacular Christianity, with the hallmark of Haeresis Bulgarica.

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